XINHUA: Russia’s daily piped natural gas deliveries to China are set to rise by more than 50% by the end of 2021, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

The current daily rate of 28 million cubic metres will rise to 43 million cubic metres by year-end, ensuring supply for winter and spring, including the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, Xinhua cited an official from PipeChina as saying.

The so-called East Route pipeline scheme has carried more than 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas to China since starting operations in December 2019, the report said.

In China, the northern and middle sections of the scheme have already been completed, while the southern section is due to be finished by 2025, allowing the project to reach its planned capacity of 38 bcm per year.

PipeChina on Tuesday started work on a gas link to one of the Winter Olympics venues, Zhangjiakou.